The Advocacy Institute is an annual advanced summer training programme for human rights practitioners seeking to increase their skills and gain a practical understanding of participatory advocacy methods and tools.

HREA offers self-directed e-courses, tutored e-learning courses combined with face-to-face workshops for human rights defenders and educators, development and humanitarian workers, staff members of social justice organisations, international and inter-governmental organisations, law enforcement officials and legal and media professionals in the following 13 areas:

In 2006 HREA started a new long-term training programme for human rights defenders based on a "distributed" or "blended" learning model. The programme is based on the premise that the ideal learning model involves hands-on training, time for reading and reflection, group work, an extended engagement in the learning process, mentoring and the opportunity to apply knowledge and skills in a real-life situation and receive support and feedback.